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☆ Rate cuts are likely coming next year, but investors shouldn't bank on them saving the market
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-27 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . In today's big story, we're looking at why the rate cuts investors have been praying for might not be the godsend they imagined. But rate cuts won't necessarily be the win markets are hoping for, Business Insider's Jennifer Sor writes. Still, some interest rate traders are predicting rate cuts coming as soon as this March, according to CME's FedWatch Tool. Another key piece of the economy facing headwinds complicates the case for rate cuts being a boon for investors.

Persons: —, I've, we're, Patrick Semansky, Jennifer Sor, CME's, Jennifer, Insider's Dominick Reuter, Miles Goodloe, Domenic, Robert Oszust Jr, Domenic Boresta, Alice Brooks, Jennifer Campbell, Sean Jacobsohn, he's, Jacobsohn, Chelsea Jia Feng, They're, it's, Gen, Bradley Cooper, Ben Affleck, Greta Gerwig, Bill, Bill —, Bill Nye, Science Guy, Manolo Blahnik, Jimi Hendrix, Steve Bannon, Bruce Lee, Dan DeFrancesco, Naga Siu, Hallam Bullock, Lisa Ryan Organizations: Service, Tech, Business, Federal Reserve, Fed, UBS, Big Tech, Retail, Walmart, Target, Financial Times, Echo, Khosla Ventures, Science Locations: Washington, Miles, Chelsea, New York City, San Diego, London, New York

☆ 20 women in venture capital who made partner or higher at firms like Khosla Ventures and GV in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-24 | by ( Samantha Stokes | Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

The venture capital industry is overwhelmingly male. But more firms made moves to close the gender gap in 2023 by hiring and promoting women to partners. Startups and venture capital are still overwhelmingly boy's clubs — but each year, more and female investors are claiming their seat at the table. Business Insider is recognizing the women in venture capital who made partner or general partner for the first time in 2023. You can read more about Europe's new female partners here.

Persons: Alice Brooks, Jennifer Campbell Organizations: Khosla Ventures, Business

☆ VCs didn't care about OpenAI's weird board structure. It was all about investing in Sam Altman and its 'transformative' tech.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | Vishal Persaud | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

OpenAI's venture capital investors weren't thinking about its mission to serve "humanity" by developing artificial intelligence. After Altman's ouster, Vinod Khosla, an early investor in OpenAI, came to his defense despite the criticism. OpenAI's complex and unique corporate governance structure meant that VCs could invest in the capped profit entity, but never earn any influence over the nonprofit board of directors, all of whom were either cofounders or appointed outside AI experts. The board structure and its governance are all likely to change as part of the deal to bring Sam Altman back as CEO of OpenAI. The purpose of the newly formed OpenAI board – consisting of current board member D'Angelo, former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor – is to vet and potentially appoint an expanded board of up to nine people, and that Microsoft and Altman want board seats, The Verge reported.

Persons: Sam Altman, OpenAI, Altman, VCs, Sam, Altman's, Vinod Khosla, Yunus, Khosla, Wesley Chan, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Tasha McCauley, who's, Joseph Gordon, Levitt, Helen Toner, Adam D'Angelo, Karthee Madasamy, it's, David Sacks, D'Angelo, Larry Summers, Bret Taylor – Organizations: Business, Tiger Global Management, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Microsoft, FPV Ventures, Rand Corporation, Georgetown's Center for Security, Emerging Technology, MFV Partners, Qualcomm Ventures, Ikea, Bosch, Novo Nordisk Foundation, Bertelsmann Foundation, Carlsberg Foundation, Craft Ventures Locations: OpenAI, Silicon Valley, Hollywood

As Open AI employees celebrated the return of CEO Sam Altman with a five-alarm office party , OpenAI software engineer Steven Heidel was busy publicly rebuffing overtures from Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. Heidel was one of more than 700 OpenAI employees who's threatened exodus halted a would-be mutiny at one of Silicon Valley's most important AI companies. He was previously a scientist at Facebook AI Research and worked as a member of Google Brain under supervision of Prof. Geoffrey Hinton and Ilya Sutskever. Alec Radford: Radford was hired in 2016 from a small AI company he founded in his dorm room. Tao Xu : technical staff, worked on GPT4 and WhisperChristine McLeavey : technical staff, with contributions to music-related productsChristina Kim : technical staffChristopher Hesse : technical staffHeewoo Jun : technical staff, researchAlex Nichol : technical staff, researchWilliam Fedus: technical staff, researchIlge Akkaya: technical staff, researchVineet Kosaraju : technical staff, researchHenrique Ponde de Oliveira Pinto : technical staffAditya Ramesh : technical staff, developed DALL-E and DALL-E 2Prafulla Dhariwal : research scientistHunter Lightman : technical staffHarrison Edwards : research scientistYura Burda : machine language researcherTyna Eloundou : technical staff, researchPamela Mishkin : researcherCasey Chu : researcherDavid Dohan : technical staff, researchAidan Clark : researcherRaul Puri : research scientistLeo Gao : technical staff, researchYang Song : technical staff, researchGiambattista ParascandoloTodor Markov : Machine learning researcherNick Ryder : technical staff

Persons: Sam Altman, Steven Heidel, Marc Benioff, Heidel, Altman, Mira Murati, Murati, Brad Lightcap, Lightcap, Jason Kwon, Kwon, Wojciech Zaremba, Geoffrey Hinton, Ilya Sutskever, Alec Radford, Radford, OpenAI, Peter Welinder, He's, Github Copilot, Anna Makanju, Andrej Karpathy, OpenAI's, Michael Petrov, Petrov, Greg [ Brockman, Miles Brundage, Brundage, John Schulman OpenAI, Srinivas Narayanan, Scott Grey, Grey, Bob McGrew, Research Che Chang, Lillian Weng, Safety Systems Mark Chen, Frontiers Research Barret Zoph, Peter Deng, Jan Leike Evan Morikawa Steven Heidel Jong Wook Kim, Tao Xu, Christine McLeavey, Christina Kim, Christopher Hesse, Heewoo, Alex Nichol, William Fedus, Henrique Ponde de Oliveira Pinto, Aditya Ramesh, Hunter Lightman, Harrison Edwards, Yura, Tyna, Pamela Mishkin, Casey Chu, David Dohan, Aidan Clark, Raul Puri, Leo Gao, Yang, Giambattista Parascandolo Todor Markov, Nick Ryder Organizations: Business, BI, OpenAI, Khosla Ventures, Facebook, Research, Google, Tesla, U.S . Department of Energy, Oxford University, Safety Systems, Frontiers Research Locations: Albania, Canada, OpenAI

☆ VCs weigh in on the chaos unfolding at OpenAI, rallying behind ousted CEO Sam Altman: 'I hope the board can get its act together'
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-19 | by ( Samantha Stokes | Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

OpenAI's board ousted Sam Altman, its chief executive, on Friday. AdvertisementVCs this weekend have one message for Sam Altman — we're with you. In another X post, he called on OpenAI's board to explain in more detail why they fired Altman. Advertisement"We are grateful for Sam's many contributions to the founding and growth of OpenAI," the board said in a statement. "So I hope the board can get its act together and bring Sam and Greg back."

Persons: OpenAI's, Sam Altman, —, Sam Altman —, Mira Murati, Altman, Vinod Khosla —, OpenAI —, Sam, David Sachs, OpenAI, ChatGPT —, Ilya Sutskever —, Sutskever, Jason Kwon, Altman's, He's, Greg Bockman, Jessica Livingston, Greg, Sam retakes OpenAI Organizations: Altman, Service, Khosla Ventures, Ventures, Microsoft Locations: Silicon, Silicon Valley, @OpenAI

☆ The biggest potential loser of the OpenAI fiasco wasn't Sam Altman. It was Satya Nadella.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-19 | by ( Julie Bort | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

AdvertisementIf Sam Altman can't be convinced to return to OpenAI, Microsoft is in trouble. All of which means that the biggest loser if Altman can't be convinced to return isn't Altman. This OpenAI board is way over its head and the failed coup is now backfiring," investor Dan Ives, an analyst at Webush, told Business Insider. OpenAI only gave Microsoft a few minutes advance warning before announcing Altman's ouster, sources told Business Insider. Earlier this month the company made over 100 announcements of integrations with OpenAI tech across Microsoft's AI tools, AI models, tools in its cloud, the company told Business Insider.

Persons: OpenAI, Sam Altman, Altman, Webush's Dan Ives, —, VCs, Vinod Khosla, Greg Brockman, Altman wasn't, isn't Altman, Satya Nadella, Sam, Dan Ives, Brockman, Mira Murati, he's, Ives, ChatGPT Organizations: Microsoft, Service, Khosla Ventures, Chiefs, Nadella, Business, OpenAI, Google Locations: @OpenAI, Mira, Silicon Valley, OpenAI

☆ Khosla Ventures Closes In on $3 Billion for Venture Funds, Defying Startup Slump
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-14 | by ( Berber Jin | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

At WSJ’s Tech Live conference, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla discusses the pros and cons of investing in AI technology. Photo: Nikki Ritcher for The Wall Street JournalKhosla Ventures is in the final stages of raising $3 billion for its latest set of venture funds, showing how some Silicon Valley investors remain bullish even as startups continue to stare down slower growth and lower valuations. The fundraise will be one of the largest completed by a venture firm this year and one of the few to grow in size. Khosla Ventures last raised $1.85 billion three years ago.

Persons: Vinod Khosla, Nikki Ritcher Organizations: WSJ’s Tech, Wall Street Journal Khosla Ventures, Khosla Ventures

☆ Early OpenAI Investor Khosla Ventures Closes In on $3 Billion for Venture Funds
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-14 | by ( Berber Jin | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Persons: Vinod Khosla, Nikki Ritcher, OpenAI Organizations: WSJ’s Tech, Wall Street Journal Khosla Ventures, Khosla Ventures

☆ Billionaire VC Vinod Khosla was one of the first investors in OpenAI. Now he thinks most AI startups have become way overvalued.
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-24 | by ( Ben Bergman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Instead of AI, Khosla says he is "making lots of fundamental investments in esoteric areas." Funding for AI companies climbed 27% globally in the third quarter compared to the year before even as overall deals for startups fell 31%, according to PitchBook data compiled for Bloomberg. (seeking a valuation of more than $5 billion), Hugging Face ($4.5 billion valuation) or Adept (reported $1 billion valuation). The firm invested earlier this year in Replit, a generative AI tool for software development, at a $1.16 billion post-money valuation. There is also OpenAI itself, which arguably has benefited as much as any startup from the AI hype.

Persons: OpenAI, Vinod Khosla, Khosla, Kleiner Perkins Caufield, Byers, Kleiner Perkins, – Khosla Organizations: Khosla Ventures, Sun Microsystems, AMD, Juniper Networks, Forbes, Street, Tech, Bloomberg, Anthropic Locations: Silicon Valley, Laguna Beach, Replit

☆ Veteran VC and OpenAI investor Vinod Khosla says he used ChatGPT to write a rap for his daughter's wedding
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-23 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Vinod Khosla said in an X post that he used ChatGPT to write a rap for his daughter's wedding. And then used another AI tool to turn the lyrics into a song that he played at the event. AdvertisementAdvertisementThe experienced venture capitalist Vinod Khosla is praising AI tools for helping him write a rap for his daughter's wedding. The billionaire and father-of-four detailed his use of the technology in an X post on Saturday. AdvertisementAdvertisement"AI can do more for humanity in creating a utopian world and world of abundance," he told The Journal.

Persons: Vinod Khosla, —, Khosla, virality, Kendall Roy, Greg Brockman Organizations: Service, Wall Street, Khosla Ventures Locations: OpenAI

☆ Will AI Bring Utopia or Dystopia? A Venture Capitalist Picks Utopia
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-20 | by ( ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Could venture capitalists one day be replaced by AI? ‘I can’t say they won’t,’ says Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures. Photo: Nikki Ritcher for the Wall Street JournalThe future of AI is in many ways a blank slate—a place where many people place all sorts of fears but where many investors see all sorts of potential. To explore the utopia vs. dystopia scenarios, The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Dean spoke to Vinod Khosla , founder of venture-capital firm Khosla Ventures, at the Journal’s Tech Live conference. Here are edited excerpts of the conversation.

Persons: ’, Vinod Khosla, Nikki Ritcher, Jason Dean Organizations: Khosla Ventures, Wall Street, Journal’s Tech

☆ Fact Check: Fact Check: FDA is not replacing salt with 'mRNA’ salt substitutes
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-10 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Now he is trying to replace organic salt with a mRNA chemical laced inorganic synthetic salt substitute actually produced by the man himself Bill gates. Other ingredients in Morton salt substitute include fumaric acid, monocalcium phosphate and silicon dioxide. MRNA NOT AN INGREDIENTThe claim that common salt is being replaced with a “mRNA chemical laced inorganic synthetic salt substitute” is misleading. “In terms of how chemists use the words ‘organic’ and ‘inorganic’, both table salt (sodium chloride) and potassium chloride would be inorganic compounds as they lack carbon atoms." The FDA is not replacing salt with “mRNA fake salt.”This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team.

Persons: Bill Gates, Bill, ”, Morton, Christopher Simmons, Davis, ” Simmons, Melinda Gates, Gates, Vinod Khosla’s, Morton Salt, Read Organizations: U.S, Food, Drug Administration, Microsoft, Twitter, People’s, FDA, Gates, Reuters, Food Science, Technology, University of California, Melinda Gates Foundation, Khosla Ventures, Thomson

☆ Our crisis of loneliness, the new bet investors are going after
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-04 | by ( Rebecca Ungarino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

Not long after founding the startup, Gaon shared his vision with famed venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. It was notable to Gaon at the time that Andreessen — "one of those investors who's known for seeing where the market is going" — appeared to have pinpointed loneliness as its own market. That moved her parents, Cindy and Anne Jordan, who had sold their first healthtech company years before, to found the Arizona company Pyx Health. "The loneliness crisis is bigger, and more urgent, than anything I've worked on before," Nyborg wrote in a blog post. Inspired debuted a thesis in 2020 that identified loneliness as a key focus for the firm to invest in.

Persons: Benjamin Gaon, Boaz Gaon, Benny, Gaon, Marc Andreessen, Andreessen, Wisdo, —, Anne Wojcicki, Marius Nacht, Andreessen Horowitz, Vivek Murthy, Betsy Hoover, Bumble, Rylie Sarabia, Cindy, Anne Jordan, policyholders, Dawn Owens, it's, Owens, Julie Rice, Elizabeth Cutler, Rice, Peoplehood, Phil Levin, Levin, Culdesac, Renate Nyborg, I've, Nyborg, Hugo Amsellem, He's, Ava, Catalyst, Nate Tepper, Tepper, Adam Besvinick, Frances Haugen, Hoover, Alexa von Tobel, von Tobel, David Spinks Organizations: Pyx, Labs, verve, Investors, Pyx Health, TT Capital Partners, New, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capita, AI Fund, NEA, AIs, Looking Glass, Anonymous, Glass, Facebook, Bloomberg Locations: Arizona, Minneapolis, New York, Ava, France, Peoplehood, Hopscotch

☆ As Instacart goes public, it's no victory lap for founder Apoorva Mehta
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-19 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Mehta was replaced as CEO of Instacart in July 2021 following a messy dispute with some of the company's largest investors. Instacart Founder Apoorva Mehta in his 2003 yearbook photo from Westdale Secondary School. The app started gaining momentum and Mehta put out ads on Craigslist for shoppers to do the grocery runs for him. Whole Foods reportedly broke the news to Mehta and a fellow Instacart executive on an early morning call. In a sworn affidavit, Mehta denies that he misappropriated any trade secrets and says he's since cut ties with Singh.

Persons: Apoorva Mehta, Mehta, Safeway Mehta, Hamilton Public Library Mehta, Bing Gordon, Kleiner Perkins, Gordon, he'd, Garry Tan, Tan, Garry, Andreessen Horowitz, catapulting Mehta, Forbes, Instacart, Mike Moritz, Fidji Simo, Simo, That's, Mehta's, he's, Tejasvi, Singh, Sam Bankman, NextMed, it's Organizations: Instacart, Safeway, Westdale Secondary, Hamilton Public Library, The University of Waterloo, Amazon, NPR, Electronic Arts, YC, TechCrunch, Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, Forbes, Foods, Costco, Kroger, Facebook, Sunrise Locations: India, Libya, Hamilton , Ontario, Toronto, Seattle, San Francisco, wallowing, Sequoia, Mehta's, Marin County

☆ Khosla Ventures backs effort to make orchards of lung-like material to absorb CO2 from air
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-06 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Spiritus has built a novel approach to direct air carbon capture that relies on a material that absorbs carbon dioxide passively. When the lung-like "fruit" have been collected from the carbon "orchard," they will be put in a container, where low heat will be applied to remove the carbon dioxide. That's important because while carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are at record high levels, carbon dioxide is still diluted and makes up a relatively small percentage of the air. That third component — economical — is critical in the direct air carbon capture field, and is part of what drew Khosla Ventures to make its first direct air capture investment in Spiritus. "We're able to remove about 1,000 times more carbon dioxide than a forest can.

Persons: Charles Cadieu, Matt Lee, Spiritus, Lee, Lee hadn't, Cadieu, Melinda Gates, she's, Leonardo da Vinci, We've, Rajesh Swaminathan, Swaminathan, what's Organizations: Silicon, Khosla Ventures, Page One Ventures, CNBC, Los Alamos National Lab, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Melinda Gates Foundation, GE Healthcare, Yahoo, Ventures, U.S . Department of Energy Locations: Western U.S, Spiritus

☆ Alice Zheng moved from med school to McKinsey to venture capital. Here's how she's using those experiences to advance innovation in women's health.
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-02 | by ( Samantha Stokes | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Alice Zheng is a VC at RH Capital focusing on early-stage women's health startups. Seven years after graduating from medical school, Zheng is now a principal at RH Capital, the fund of female-led firm Rhia Ventures. The firm, which focuses on early-stage women's health investing, collected $38.5 million for its second fund last year. Zheng later took a two-year hiatus from medical school to pursue an MBA from Harvard Business School. Zheng invests in women's health startups across consumer, life sciences, diagnostics, digital health, and health services.

Persons: Alice Zheng, Zheng, –, she'd, Juniper, Liang Organizations: RH Capital, University of Michigan, Harvard, McKinsey, University of Michigan Medical School, Ross School of Business, Rhia Ventures, GV, Khosla Ventures, Harvard Business School, McKinsey Global, Fortune, Capital Locations: China, U.S, Ann Arbor, McKinsey's, San Francisco

☆ See the presentation that got a healthtech startup $7 million from Khosla Ventures to help patients find new treatments using AI
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-17 | by ( Rebecca Torrence | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Eureka Health is building a platform to help patients with chronic conditions find new treatments. Eureka Health used this 11-slide pitch deck to land $7 million in a round led by Khosla Ventures. Eureka Health seeks to give patients with chronic conditions a community to find new treatments based on reports of what other patients have tried. Then, Eureka patients can log how effective a specific treatment was for their symptoms, as well as any side effects they may have experienced. Eureka Health provided Insider with the deck it used to raise $7 million in seed funding.

Persons: Zain Memon, Noah MacCallum, Memon, MacCallum, Anne Wojcicki, Susan Wojcicki, Eureka, we're Organizations: Eureka Health, Khosla Ventures, Health, South Park, SciFi, Able Partners, Bow, 23andMe, South Locations: Eureka, South Park

☆ Meet 17 medical doctors at VC firms like GV and Khosla Ventures who are investing in the next big healthcare startups
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-20 | by ( Samantha Stokes | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Some medical school graduates are bringing their expertise to the world of startup investing. Take a look at 17 doctors who are now investing at VC firms like GV and Khosla. And still others, including Khosla Ventures' Alex Morgan and Galym Imanbayev of Lightspeed Venture Partners, jumped directly to a VC firm after graduating from medical school. Even so, VCs with medical degrees all say they feel that their medical school training has been invaluable in terms of understanding a health startup's business. Take a look at Insider's list of 17 medical doctors who are now VCs at top firms like GV, Khosla Ventures, and more.

Persons: —, laud, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Jack Dorsey, Chris Kager, Robert Mittendorf, Alex Morgan, Galym, Alice Zheng Organizations: MDs, GV, Khosla, Global Health, Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, University of Michigan Medical School, RH Capital

☆ Why the 'Mother of Dragons' at SpaceX left her job building rockets to work on nuclear fusion
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-10 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

"In one role in particular, my unofficial title was 'Mother of Dragons,'" Dunn told CNBC in an interview in Devens, Massachusetts. But in January 2019, Dunn started work at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a startup that is attempting to commercialize nuclear fusion as an energy source. Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards The advanced manufacturing facility located at the Commonwealth Fusion Systems campus in Devens, Massachusetts, where magnets are manufactured. "The biggest thing I think about a lot is time, about how fast can we go," Dunn told CNBC. And we have a poster in the back stairwell that says, 'Keep calm and fuse on," Dunn told CNBC.

Persons: Darby Dunn, of, Dunn, Darby Dunn Dunn, I've, Don Quixote, Elon, Elon Musk, it's, Bill Gates, that's Organizations: Commonwealth Fusion Systems, SpaceX, CNBC, International, Commonwealth, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, SPARC, Google, Khosla Ventures, Lowercarbon, ARC, United Nations Locations: Devens , Massachusetts, California, Devens , Mass, Commonwealth

☆ Autonomous agents are Silicon Valley's latest AI obsession. Here's why pizza-ordering bots may be coming to a computer near you soon.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

"Autonomous AI agents" are AI bots that can plan and prioritize to achieve user-provided goals. However, the rise of AI agents has sparked concerns around safety and the potential for AGI. From assistants to digital friendsHowever, AI doomsdayers don't have to be too worried yet — the performance of these AI agents have often been less than stellar. Without the proper guardrails, AI agents with unrestricted access to the Internet may similarly take unanticipated steps to complete its goals, like transferring money from a bank account. And sometimes, the misuse of AI agents is intentional, rather than accidental.

May 1 (Reuters) - Longtime Kleiner Perkins partner Wen Hsieh is leaving the Silicon Valley venture capital establishment to start a fund with backing from the firm and Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC (2330.TW), sources told Reuters. Hsieh is in advanced talks to raise $200 million from limited partners including Kleiner Perkins and TSMC for the new fund called Matter Ventures. A Kleiner Perkins spokesperson confirmed Hsieh's departure and the firm's participation in the fund. Hsieh, with two PhDs from the California Institute of Technology, has worked at Kleiner Perkins for 17 years, leading investments in Chinese drone maker DJI and 3D printing company Desktop Medal (DM.N). He will remain on the boards of companies he invested in at Kleiner Perkins, including orthodontic brackets maker LightForce.

☆ Why cutting middle management is a bad idea
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Emilia David | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The push to cut middle managers will backfire on tech. Companies like Amazon, Meta, and Salesforce embarked on cost-cutting efforts that "flattened" org charts by removing middle managers, starting a trend across Silicon Valley. Middle managers, or what Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls "managers managing managers," saw their roles shrink in the past year as tech companies focus on "individual contributors," increasingly requiring managers to do coding work themselves. But losing middle managers could also impact team morale and how employees look at their futures in the company. It comes despite Musk recently signing an open letter calling for an industry-wide halt to any AI training for several months.

☆ Exclusive: The University of California has invested billions in venture capital firms since 2000 and it has lost hundreds of millions so far. Here's why.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Ben Bergman | Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Insider obtained UC Investments' returns through a Public Records Act request. Unlike many other financial institutions, VC funds are not required to show their return on investment in startups. UC Investments, which has been managed by Jagdeep Singh Bachher since 2014, declined to comment. Though selling early produced an initial windfall, UC Investments could have ultimately missed out on substantial gains from these VC funds. By comparison, UC Investments earned a 8.3% return for its investment in public markets.

☆ Lawmakers meet with Apple, Disney CEOs as part of talks on competition with China
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-07 | by ( Lauren Feiner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

High-profile tech and media executives shared their experiences of working in and competing with China with lawmakers who visited California this week. Over the three-day trip that kicked off on Wednesday, lawmakers were scheduled to meet with Disney CEO Bob Iger and Apple CEO Tim Cook, as well as high-level executives from Google , Microsoft , Palantir and Scale AI. The trip highlights the key role tech and media industries play in America's increasingly complex relationship with China. In Hollywood, the group of lawmakers from the select committee learned about a range of topics related to competition with China. The group was also slated to meet with venture capitalists on Thursday, including Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures and SV Angel.

☆ AI will eventually free people up to 'work when they want to,' ChatGPT investor predicts
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Grace Mayer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The future of AI could "free humanity" from work, according to OpenAI investor Vinod Khosla. "This large transformation is the opportunity to free humanity from the need to work. People will work when they want to work on what they want to work on," Khosla told Semafor. Back in 2014, Khosla told Semafor, he started thinking about a future with AI, even predicting that eventually most media would be created by AI in the future and that AI will disrupt teaching. AI jobs in tech, mathematics, accounting, and communication fields will be especially at risk, the researchers found.

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